No Pasarán: Writings from the Spanish Civil War - Hardcover

Críticas

In this superb, shattering book of testimonies, Pete Ayrton has organised the best of all introductions to the Spanish Civil War. It's not a history, but the experiences of 38 men and women - some famous names, others little known - as the twentieth century for the first time showed its true face in western Europe: the dazzling hope, the betrayals and the disillusions, the merciless cruelty and the desperate heroism. Malraux, Sartre, Laurie Lee, Arthur Koestler and George Orwell are among the witnesses here. Not all were on the anti-Fascist side; some were not even born, but now look back on the fate of their older generation with pity and horror. They and the survivors in this book are asking what remains of it all beyond the pain. (Neil Ascherson)

From the reviews of No Man's Land:
'The essential collection of writing from the First World War

(Times)

The real strength of No Man's Land is the sheer diversity of the voices it offers, especially those from fronts often overlooked or considered peripheral in the United States and Britain. (New York Times)

As diverse in attitudes as it is in geography ... a tribute to the art of translation ... marvellous. (Times Literary Supplement)

Splendid ... the war, in all its calculated cruelty, its human impact, its formidable weapons of death and destruction and - yes - its futility, is captured brilliantly in this remarkable, wide-ranging anthology. (Herald)

Superb ... an impressive anthology that bears an extraordinary cargo of human experience, and is an enlightenment for those who think only of the western front when they remember the first world war. (Helen Dunmore Financial Times)

Trail-blazing .... (Independent)

Biografía del autor

Pete Ayrton was born in London in 1943. After studying and briefly teaching philosophy, a period of left-wing tourism in France and Italy led to his learning to read and converse in these languages, and to take part in the intense, opaque discourses of Marxism. A period of work as translator led to a job as editor with Pluto Press and to his founding in 1986 of Serpent's Tail with the specific remit of publishing fiction in translation; this includes two First World War classics Frederic Manning's Her Privates We and Gabriel Chevallier's Fear, both represented in No Man's Land.